The invention relates to computer systems, and more particularly to a method and mechanism for identifying past life(s) of data in a database system.
In database systems, a “transaction” normally refers to an atomic set of operations performed against a database. The transaction may access, create, modify, or delete database data or database metadata while it is being processed. A “commit” occurs when the transaction has completed its processing and any changes to the database by the transaction are ready to be “permanently” implemented in the database system. Because the transaction is atomic, all actions taken by the transaction must be committed at the same time.
In conventional systems, a committed transaction comprises a set of one or more permanent changes that are made against a set of records in a database system. Since the committed changes for a transaction are normally permanent, the transactions themselves are not normally reversible. Therefore, most database systems do not have an easily accessible way to access and view past versions of a data item.
Some database systems allow an archived version of a database system to be restored to a particular point in time, usually by restoring the entire database as of the time that the “back up” archive was made. However, this approach restores an entire database, even though only a small set of one or more transactions may need to be undone or compensated for to correct a data error made by the transactions. This is a highly inefficient approach if only a relatively small number of changes or transactions must be corrected.
One solution that has been provided is to undo, reverse, or compensate for a committed transaction in a database system, as described in co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 10/364,065, filed on Feb. 10, 2003, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. In addition a solution has been proposed for identifying the one or more transactions that have modified or created an object, such as a row of data, in a database system, as described in co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 10/364,209, filed on Feb. 10, 2003, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
One embodiment of the invention is directed to a process, mechanism, and system for determining one or more life intervals when given a key. In addition, one or more life intervals can be determined for each key within a range of keys. This process is useful for auditing purposes or if it is desire to implement a query upon past versions when a key or range of keys is specified for the data for which past versions is desired.
Further details of aspects, objects, and advantages of the invention are described below in the detailed description, drawings, and claims.